


they were cast from sunlight

by yellowbeesknees



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, charlie please stop being so confident bi you're making me jealous, dead poets society is the only thing getting me through life, i use lots of pretentious language, its 2:30 in the morning, knox sweetie pls stop being nervous, maybe i was listening to sunlight by hozier when i wrote this, spolier alert they kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:40:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24363718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowbeesknees/pseuds/yellowbeesknees
Summary: Charlie can't lie: he's fucking bored.Spending the summer with the Overstreets seemed like a good idea on paper, but not when the destination was as dull as this, and not when they spend everyday the same. It's time to mix things up a bit, try something new. Pushing his friendship with Knox passed what he would define as friendship seems like the perfect idea.
Relationships: Charlie Dalton/Knox Overstreet
Comments: 16
Kudos: 88





	they were cast from sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> heads up: i'm english so sorry if my descriptions don't sound very american beachy, i've never been.
> 
> also this was inspired by a post i saw on tumblr by thedailylifeofafailedvodkaaunt in which they suggest a fic where knox & charlie go on holiday, get bored, and makeout.

Sunlight.

Aching, grasping, folding over skin sunlight. Sunlight that warmed through every layer of skin, right down to the bone. Sunlight that turned veins to vessels pulsing with the heat of eternal stars. They were made from sunlight, reborn on that beach, coughing from the salty water that had pushed them out. Fingers digging into rough sand, weaving in the sharp rugged grasses that soldiered fiercely on in the onslaught of the wind and sifting sands of the dunes. Sunlight splintered their skin and took root among the torn undergrowth. They were sheltered here, from the wind at least, it was still a suntrap, the white sands reflecting the heat in glancing solar rays.

Charlie lay back, winding his fingers in the grass, pressing his back against the hot sand, a sheen of sweat and sun-cream glimmering on his now tanned skin. He sighed, watching Knox struggle up the other bank of sand, scrabbling at the shifting surface, using the grass for purchase. Then he pushed up off the ground and followed him, launching himself up the side of the dune.

They crouched at the top, looking out to sea, seeing their mothers lounging on the flat sands closer to the holiday cottage, their fathers hadn’t been able to make the trip, they were too busy. They were always too busy.

“Race you to the water?” Knox suggested, already sliding down the sand on the other side. “Now we’ve done the sunbathing.”

Everyday had become a ritual like that over the past few days. First: find somewhere secluded to sunbathe for an hour or so without tourists annoying them; second was to race down to the water and swim for a little while; third: dry out and sunbathe, baking in the beach oven. After that it was either rinse and repeat or hide in the shade of the house and play saxophone, read, draw, or simply talk about how much they weren’t looking forwards to going back to Hellton. 

Charlie let out a small sigh. “I suppose so.” It was nice to spend the summer with Knox, he’d never done it before, but there was something inherently boring about the place: the flat sands, rough scrubland, blue sea, clear sky, and perfect, uniform houses. He hiked up his swimming shorts and followed Knox at a languid jog, the heat still beating down on them from above. In the dull monotony of the run, he let his mind drift to more pleasurable sights. Like seeing Knox’s tanned shoulders moving just a little way in front of him, his leg muscles thudding against the ground and allowed himself a smirk.

Testing the waters in two different senses, Charlie dipped his toe into the water, reaching out to grab Knox’s arm as he did so. He kept hold of it as casually as he could as he walked a little further out. He could see Knox glancing down at his hand every now and again, but he didn’t say anything as they walked out further into the sea. Charlie turned to look up at him. “Ready to go for a swim?” They were about waist deep, and he was still clutching Knox’s arm.

“Are you going to let go of me first?” asked Knox, finally verbally acknowledging it.

He shrugged, smirking at him in reply.

Knox rolled his eyes, shook Charlie’s hand off and plunged into the water. Feeling bereft of Knox’s skin beneath his, Charlie followed him, letting the water submerge him entirely. It rushed around him, caressing and crushing him the same way the sun had smothered him. 

He broke the surface gasping, hair flicking droplets wildly as he looked around for Knox. A dark shadow was cutting under the water towards him and he sighed languorously. He felt hands on his ankles and he was jerked underneath the water. There was a mild scuffle on the ocean floor, then they crashed up again, spluttering and laughing, shaking their heads like damp dogs. Knox had his hands on Charlie’s shoulders from hauling him out of the water and Charlie couldn’t help but stare at his grinning lips, he felt the water lapping around them, crooning and soothing them to quiet. Beneath the surface, Charlie moved his hands out tentatively and placed them on Knox’s hips. He looked up boldly, meeting Knox’s confused eyes above flushed cheeks. Knox looked away first, regarding the glittering water around them.

Then his gaze flicked up again, his eyes asking a dozen questions with one spoken one. “Shall we go back to the house now?” If there had ever been a loaded question, this was one.

“Yes,” said Charlie carefully, “I’m bored out here.”

The house was desperately cold, the coolest shade that Charlie lapped up with a sigh of relief. It settled on his skin delicately, smoothing out the roughness of sand and salt. They didn’t speak much, simply had their showers and then reconvened in the kitchen. Charlie poured himself a glass of water and gulped it down before collapsing on a kitchen chair.

Knox was watching him intently. “You know, I don’t get to see girls all year at Welton, and then I’m stuck here with you Char.”

After a moments deliberation about where exactly he was driving this conversation, Charlie tilted his head to look at Knox. “I’m sure you don’t exactly need a girl to get what you want Knox.”

He looked even more nervous than he had with Charlie’s hands on his hips. “Don’t I?”

“Aren’t you bored with the routine around here Knox? Surely we can come up with something more exciting to do.” He tried to hold eye contact but Knox seemed steadfast in his contemplation of the floor tiles. “Any input?”

“I think you might have some ideas already.”

He sighed, realising that Knox wasn’t going to even touch the notion of making the first move. “Stand up Knoxious.”

“What? Why?”

“Humour me.” Charlie stood up too and moved to stand right in front of Knox. “Are you starting to understand the why?” He kept his eyes locked with Knox’s, daring him to look away. “Still bored?”

“You haven’t done anything yet, stop being so cocky.” He smirked nervously.

Charlie wound his arms around Knox’s waist, clenching at the soft fabric of his t-shirt and, and pulled him closer so they were flush against each other. “How about now?”

He leant down a little, hovering in the soft exhales that left Charlie’s thumping chest. He was tantalising, the apple of Eden, the final step into oblivion hung between them and god was Charlie begging for something exciting to happen, something to break the tedium. He lifted his face and pressed a gentle, anxious kiss to the corner of Knox’s mouth, still testing the waters. He let his hands run up Knox’s back to catch in his hair, which wasn’t the tough briar of the dune flora, but soft and wet and silky, flopping between his fingers gently. Their eyes met, as Charlie pulled back from the lingering kiss. “Charlie,” he whispered softly, and pressed down firmly, a real kiss, persistent, prolonged, full of longing and desire and that filled him with sunlight all over again. Then again, a soft, breathless murmur, “Charlie.” They were lost in each other’s scent, in their skin, in the bursting light of dawn that spread beneath their fingertips. Charlie’s palms had moved to press against his chest, fingertips digging lightly into his collarbones. They kissed again, Charlie initiating this time, his hands moving to the back of Knox’s neck. Between breaths, Knox would moan his name like a prayer.

They moved up to the bedroom they shared, with the twin beds on either side of the room, collapsing onto Charlie’s, insistently kissing, fingers fumbling in hair and running down forbidden expanses of skin never before explored. Hot lips pressing to neck, shoulders, back, stomach, hands.

Summer wasn’t so boring any more.

They still found the hidden spot between the dunes, but their time was spent far more pleasurably, fingertips and lips running over skin. Fingers wound in hair not brittle, dry grass; palms splayed across spines not furrowing through sand. They still ran down to the water, but beneath the surface fingers could find and clasp one another. They could still bake in the sun before sloping up to the house, but hands could nonchalantly wind their little fingers together, and whispers of promise could be breathed into the cobalt sky. Then the house was theirs, their territory, their stomping ground where Knox could whisper Charlie’s name against his burnt skin.

Sunlight.

Breaking through the blinds, slicing the room into decisive portions of shadow and light. Dawn that slowly breathed the skin to life, pressed gently against the eyelids until they sprung open to the grey glare. Soft sunlight that caressed two bodies, wound together in a sheet, joined and unbroken, hot skin on hot skin. Sleepy innocence charmed by sunlight, faces craning towards the light they would later shrink from, praising the way it turned the other’s skin golden. Tracing lines of shadow with fingertips on bare gold pressed statues, soft and supple beneath a gliding touch. They were made from sunlight, they were made from tracing paper where sunlight broke through, monoliths of translucency before each other. Everything laid bare, everything clear and stark to the eye. Cast from sunlight. They did not blind each other with solar rays, they bound each other in light, life bloomed beneath the tentative bold fingers of the sun. They were made of sunlight.

**Author's Note:**

> tysm for reading. hope you enjoyed!
> 
> i also have a tumblr & an instagram under the user fivecenturiesverse!


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